Miss Ivy Bailey was born in Shepshed, Leicestershire, England in late 1900, the daughter of Walter George and Jessie Annie Bailey. The family home was at Finney Hill, Ashby Road, Sheepshed, Leicestershire. In 1912, however, the family immigrated to Canada and settled in Fauquiers's Landing, Lower Arrow Lake, in British Columbia, where her father became a rancher.
In the spring of 1915, her parents decided to return home to Leicestershire and consequently booked as second cabin passengers with The Cunard Steam Ship Company to cross the Atlantic to England. At the end of April 1915, they set out from Needles, British Columbia, and joined the Lusitania at the Cunard wharf, at Pier 54 in New York harbour, on the morning of 1st May. Their departure was delayed until the early afternoon as the liner had to take on board passengers, crew and cargo from the Anchor Lines ship the S.S. Cameronia, which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty for war service as a troop ship, at the end of April. Just six days later, on the afternoon of 7th May, the
Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20, twelve miles off the coast of southern Ireland and only hours away from her Liverpool home port.
Miss Bailey and both her parents were killed as a result of this action and as no trace of them was ever found again, none of them has a known grave. She was aged 14 years.
Her maternal uncle, Mr. Charles Benjamin Hanford left Sheepshed for Liverpool, on the morning of Friday 7th May to meet his family on the liner’s scheduled arrival there, on the Saturday morning. Unfortunately, his arrival would have coincided with news of the liner’s sinking!
Her maternal uncle, Charles B. Hanford, lodged a claim for the loss of the family and their possessions with the Canadian Commission which was established to deal with such claims, but as Mr. Hanford wasn’t a Canadian citizen, and there were no Canadian dependants, the commission made no award.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1901 Census of England & Wales, 1911 Census of England & Wales, Canadian Claims Case No. 889, Cunard Records, Leicester Daily Mercury, Probate Records, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv D92/2/340, Graham Maddocks, Jess Jenkins, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.